


Three Times Noctis Comes Out First (And One Time He Doesn't Have To)

by MagitekUnit05953234



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Bear with me I'm projecting, Brotherhood AU, Coming Out, M/M, Mentioned Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Noctis has anxiety ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 23:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20054077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/pseuds/MagitekUnit05953234
Summary: In a hidden notes app on Noctis’s phone, there is a list. It is locked behind a passkey that he picked at random —zero three two zero— and is kept in the second page of an app folder, where he hopes no one who would somehow get a hold of his personal phone would look if searching it. On top of those measures, the app itself is disguised as a generic calculator app.It may be overkill, but.But…





	Three Times Noctis Comes Out First (And One Time He Doesn't Have To)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MathClassWarfare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathClassWarfare/gifts).

> Hey all! So for those of you waiting for new content from me: I'm sorry! I've been really busy with a lot of real life issues at home, my incredibly draining full time job, zines, and the Promnis Big Bang. In addition to that, I was involved in a pretty awful auto accident several days ago and am still recovering. If this fic weren't basically already finished before that happened it would not be out right now that's for sure.  
That said, updates on anything (and everything) are pretty much gonna be limited to one fic update a month for a while, with the exception of zine fics being put up as soon as I am allowed to upload them because those are already finished. I'm really sorry for how long it has taken to get updates out on some of my more popular pieces, but I'm doing what I can to handle real life along with this really fun hobby.  
Thank you all for sticking around.

Noctis reads Luna’s note over and over again, clutching the notebook in shaking fingers.

_ You have nothing to fear from me _ , she wrote. _ Yours, a Friend of Shiva. _

And that was all.

Two kinds of blessings, bundled into twelve words. A simple sentence and a complimentary close, written in blue ink and accompanied by pressed flowers, a white chocobo feather, a tiny tea painting of a Tenebrean skyline tucked tight into the binding.

Noct takes a deep breath. It comes out shuddery.

“Okay,” he puts the notebook down in his lap, smoothing the pages flat. “Okay. That’s… that’s step one. That was the easy one.”

Noct blinks. 

“Oh gods that was the _ easy _ one,” Noct closes the book delicately so as to not ruin the flowers pressed inside, and tucks it into the open drawer in his bedside table. He slides it shut, and throws himself back onto his bed. “Fuck…”

In a hidden notes app on Noctis’s phone, there is a list. It is locked behind a passkey that he picked at random —zero three two zero— and is kept in the second page of an app folder, where he hopes no one who would somehow get a hold of his personal phone would look if searching it. On top of those measures, the app itself is disguised as a generic calculator app.

It may be overkill, but.

_ But… _

The list has four entries, each written simply. The simplicity makes it all look very easy on paper, but absolutely none of it is in the slightest.

  * Tell Luna
    * Possible problems: engagement
  * Tell Ignis
    * Possible problems: duty, telling dad before I can
  * Tell Dad
    * Possible problems: everything
  * Tell Prompto
    * Possible problems: if it goes wrong, everything is ruined

The first step is done, but it was the easy one. If Luna was disgusted with him, she could hardly do much from where she is. Even if she did have a problem, she wasn’t the type of person to hurt Noct because of it. 

It went well, anyway. Everything did, somehow. She’s in the same boat as him, by the sound of it. He’ll have to ask her about it later.

Noct deletes the Luna step from the list, and then stares at the next one.

Ignis is harder. Though Noct doesn’t think Ignis would have an issue with this personally, he could oppose it because of Noct’s duties as the heir of the Lucian throne. He could go tell Noct’s dad before Noct has the chance to, taking control of the situation out of Noct’s hands entirely. 

Noct feels a little sick, and begins to wonder if maybe he should just stop while he’s ahead.

The phone buzzes in Noct’s hands, and he nearly drops the thing as he’s jolted from his newly forming spiral. The message preview box slides down from the top of the screen, showing Prompto’s name beside a tiny thumbnail of a photo.

**Prompto (4:26 PM)** doesnt this cat remind you of gladio???

The photo is of a large brown tabby cat, with incredibly fluffy fur and a slightly torn right ear. Its sitting on the steps outside of Prompto’s apartment building in the refugee district, and has no collar.

Warmth spreads through Noct’s chest, and he can feel a fond blush spread across his cheeks. Noct presses his phone to his forehead and tries to will the feeling away. It, as always, doesn’t quite work. 

Noct, in a turn of events that he views as incredibly unfortunate in all respects, is absolutely in love with his best friend. Despite his standing as the Prince of Lucis, his responsibility to someday soon enter a political marriage with Luna to unite their nations and carry on their bloodlines, and the eyes of the entire nation of Lucis upon him, Noctis has —along with Luna, apparently— of course turned out to be gayer than all hell and entirely unwilling to pretend he isn’t. Insomnia is a progressive place in many respects, but when it comes to immigration and LGBT issues, it lags behind from the rest of the country’s positive viewpoints quite a bit. Though Noctis is unaffected —though certainly still concerned with— the former, it’s the latter that terrifies him.

He can’t stop wondering what Ignis will do. He planned on telling Ignis tonight, because they were going to work together on finalizing Noct’s plans for his community project for this quarter tonight, but now that the hour is growing close it’s only more and more frightening. 

The time passes slowly, with Noct occasionally texting Prompto and trying to fill the rest of the minutes with King’s Knight. The distraction works a little, especially when Prompto starts spamming pictures of the other stray cats around his neighborhood that remind him of their teachers at school.

Ignis knocks on the apartment door at six in the evening exactly, as he always does, and enters after exactly ten seconds. Noct’s counted before, and the timing is always uniform with every visit to Noct’s apartment. Ignis is a stickler for random things like that.

“Hey,” Noct swallows down his nerves and raises his hand in a casual wave from the couch as Ignis enters the kitchen. “How was your meeting?”  
“It went well,” Ignis sets his briefcase down on the granite countertop and emerges around the island, visibly taking stock of the apartment. Though it isn’t what Noctis likes to call Ignis-clean, it is cleaner than the last time Ignis was here. Noctis may or may not have tried his best to tidy up in preparation for breaking the news to his oldest friend. “You cleaned.”

“Yeah,” Noct rolls over a little to properly face Ignis from behind the backrest of the couch. “I did.”

“Are you alright, Noct?” Ignis pauses where the cooking area opens up into the sitting room. “You seem nervous.”

Noct’s stomach drops at the realization that oh gods he’s actually doing this. Saying it through a letter is different, he doesn’t have to see the immediate reaction of the recipient. Maybe he should have written a letter too? Slipped it in his briefcase some morning and then gone to school and never come back? Would that have worked?

“Noctis?” Ignis has traversed the floor now, drawing up to Noct’s side. “Is there something wrong? Did you have a fight with Prompto? Or… your father…?”

“No,” Noct chokes out, then clears out his throat. “No. It’s all good.”

Ignis hums doubtfully, his eyes flitting over Noct, then the phone facedown on the couch beside him, then the school bag with Noct’s math textbook lazily sat on top with a sheet of loose notebook paper trapped between the pages instead of in the homework folder where it belongs. “I see.”

Noct could just say it now. He _ could _ . Just two little words, then it’ll be out there. His oldest friend will _ know _ and Noct will have nothing left to do but wait to see what happens. He wouldn’t have to sit here and suffer the torture of uncertainty. 

He doesn’t. Ignis returns to the kitchen, preparing ingredients for dinner and casting an appraising look at Noctis every now and again. Noct tries to play another round of King’s Knight, but his hands are shaking pretty badly. He keeps missing the quicktime prompts to get out of sticky spots and gives up after his fourth try at the current stage.

It becomes unavoidable once they sit down to eat together. Ignis has made meatballs —chicken cordon bleu meatballs, which sound weird but are actually just as good as everything else Ignis makes— and Noct can’t bring himself to do more than pick at them at best. He pushes his food around his plate, wincing at every scrape of his fork on ceramic. 

Ignis sighs, the sound louder than thunder in Noct’s ears. His heart ratchets into overdrive, but he keeps his eyes on the meatballs he has thoroughly deconstructed. Nausea roils as his anxiety increases by the second.

“Do you feel you cannot trust me with whatever is bothering you? If so that is…” Ignis is making an odd face when Noctis chances a tiny glance upward at the pause. “That is fine, of course. I ask that you talk to someone, though. Your friend Prompto, perhaps. Keeping silent on problems that are obviously causing you quite a lot of stress is hardly good fo—”

“I’m gay!” Noctis says, then promptly pushes his plate away, stands up from his seat, and hurries to the bathroom and locks the door behind him. He dry heaves through his anxiety spike with his back pressed against the wall and his hand clenched over his mouth.

So. He did that. Great start.

He didn’t even see Ignis’s reaction before he took off.

After Noct’s calmed himself down a little, he just stands in the middle of his bathroom leaning against the vanity and waiting for the inevitable confrontation that will surely occur as soon as he shows his face again.

As it turns out, the confrontation comes to him. There’s a soft tap-tap-tap on the door and Ignis’s voice filters through the wood, gentle and low. 

“Are you well, Noct? Did you get sick?”

“No,” Noct swallows down the urge to cough. “I’m fine. I’m not sick.”

“Okay.” There’s a shuffle and sliding noise outside the bathroom. When Noct takes a peek through the crack between the door and baseboard, it looks like Ignis has sat down on the floor. The _ floor _. The mere thought of Ignis, ever pristine and put-together Ignis, slumped on the ground is strange enough to almost make Noct open the door just to see it. “Is this… because of what you just told me?”

Noct can’t even bring up the energy to be ashamed as his voice cracks through the word _ yeah _.

“Thank you for trusting me with this,” Ignis says first. “I understand that it is an incredibly stressful thing to confide in someone, especially when you are in the position that you are in regards to your bloodline. I’m glad you felt able to tell me, in spite of your anxiety over it.”

That means… nothing, Noct thinks. That’s not a reaction at all, just Ignis saying that he’s glad Noct was honest. That doesn’t mean that he approves or disapproves or anything. It’s just an acknowledgement.

Until Ignis continues. Then…

“I am now feeling somewhat foolish,” Ignis says, and Noct edges closer to the door. What about any of this would make Ignis feel _ stupid _ of all things? The fact he didn’t notice sooner? Why? So he could go tell the king? He… probably wouldn’t, right? “If I had told you that I am also not straight sooner, perhaps your worries would have been alleviated somewhat when it came to confiding in me when you felt it was time to do so.”

What.

“What,” Noct blurts out, accidentally whacking his hand on the doorknob in his attempts to turn it. “What?!”

No way. There is absolutely no way that _ both _ people Noctis has stressed over coming out to so far are actually just as gay as he is. It can’t possibly be true.

Yet, Ignis looks completely serious, gazing up at Noctis from his seat on the floor with a solemn face. 

“You’re kidding,” Noct says.

Because really. Ignis? Sure, he isn’t exactly the typical uber-macho type of guy that’s real common in the Crownsguard, who stroll around with a lady on each arm and a head full of nothing important when they’re off-duty, but he’s certainly not someone Noctis would peg to be like… Noct. Not at all.

“I’m not,” Ignis pulls himself up and dusts off his pants and straightens out his shirt. “I would never lie to you about something like this.”

“You never… said anything?”

“I try not to entangle intimate details of my life with my work here with you,” Ignis says, then colors when he seems to realize how absurd that is. He lives out of Noct’s guest room half the time, and he and Noct are known for being attached at the hip even when they’re squabbling. “Well, I did say_ try _. It’s not something I thought was appropriate to mention, at any rate. I was wrong about that, it seems.”

“Tell me next time,” Noct crosses his arms, leaning his weight off his bad leg and trying to exude a casual air like he didn’t just get very close to a panic attack in the bathroom over what turned out to be no big deal in the end. “Seriously. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“That we are,” Ignis replies. Then smiles.

Noct deletes the second entry in his list that night, still awake long after Ignis went home and Prompto fell asleep in the middle of a dungeon in Terminal Reverie XIV. His eyes burn and his body is heavy with fatigue but he still can’t stop thinking about it and go to bed.

  * Tell Dad
    * Possible problems: everything

Everything, indeed. Just because Luna is what she delicately refers to as a “friend of Shiva” and Ignis is —in his words— queer, that doesn’t mean that Noct’s dad will react well to it. Noct has spent most of his life trying to make sure that he could be a prince his dad could be proud of. Since his old man is always so busy and so sick, Noct tries as much as he can to be as good as he can. When he slips because of depression or laziness or just plain idiotic mistakes, Ignis picks up the slack because Ignis is a gift from the fucking gods and Noctis doesn’t deserve him. But Ignis can’t fix Noct coming out if the king has a less than favorable view on it all. 

Maybe the shaky progress in Lucis’s LGBT rights movement is because of King Regis, and not conservative members of the Council like Noct has always assumed. Maybe his dad is just incredibly against all of that and he’ll disown Noctis the minute the words are out of Noct’s mouth. Maybe he’ll force Noct to get married as soon as he turns eighteen and then both Luna _ and _ Noct will presumably be miserable because Noct didn’t wanna keep his mouth shut anymore. Maybe...

Noct cuts himself off there. His dad loves him. Even if King Regis hated it, he wouldn’t do any of that. He would be nice about it, at least. He would be civil and would probably just tell Noct to keep it under wraps and then they’d all go on with their lives like nothing ever happened.

Yeah, that sounds better.

It still makes Noct feel sick.

He doesn’t end up telling his dad for a long time after he comes out to Ignis. While Noct’s coming out to Luna and then Ignis were both pretty much back-to-back, Noct is hindered by two things. The first is that he rarely gets one-on-one time with his dad. At best Noct may eat dinner with the king once a week or so but sometimes that gets cancelled because of emergency meetings or Regis being too tired from maintaining the Wall to do anything more than the minimum or anything, really. The second is that Noct just can’t work up the nerve.

Ignis agreed not to tell Regis at Noct’s insistence, though he assured Noct that he would never have outed Noct in the first place. Despite making Ignis promise not to, Noct is at the point where he is considering asking Ignis to out Noct _ for _ Noct, just so he wouldn’t have to face his father’s disappointment himself.

It’s a month before Noctis finds himself once again pushing his food around a dinner plate, carefully avoiding the eye of the person he’s eating with. This isn’t too far off from plenty of meals that Noct and his dad have shared in the past, especially if one considers the absolute silence Noct used to grace his father with during the worst of his downswings. It’s clear that Regis has noticed, but he gamely tries to carry conversation anyway.

“How are your classes?”

“Fine.”

“And your training with Gladiolus?”

“Same as usual.”

“How are things going with that friend of yours? Prompto, yes?”

Noct wants to hide under the table. Even the mention of Prompto is enough to make his cheeks warm, and while usually he enjoys talking about Prompto, right now that only serves as a reminder of what Noct has to do next.

_ Don’t think about his laugh or his smile or the way he saved up lunch money to try to win you that fish plushie from the rigged claw game in that arcade on Autokrator Street, _ Noct takes a deep breath. _ Don’t think about the selfies with him you have taped to the inside of your closet door or that one time he fell asleep on you after he missed the train home and you tried to pull an allnighter instead of figuring out who would sleep where. _

“They’re good,” Noct responds and immediately shoves a bite of food in his mouth to cut off any hopes that he would elaborate. He knows it would be better to just rip the bandaid off now instead of drawing out the stress of this whole closet routine but… well. It doesn’t get easier, from what Noct can tell. It just keeps happening.

Regis doesn’t press for more, instead busying himself with his own meal for a while. It isn’t until their plates are taken and replaced with small saucers of crème caramel that Regis breaks the silence. “Do you have something to say, son?”

Noct’s brain stalls. He stares at his dessert spoon in hand and completely forgets the Lucian language.

“Noctis?” Regis prompts. “You can always tell me anything —no matter how unimportant you may think it is. My head is not too full of politics to hear the concerns of my favorite son.”

“Dad,” Noctis resists the urge to throw the spoon out the window and warp after it. “What would you think if I… I mean, how would you feel if I…”

_ Deep breaths _ , Noct closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch his spoon shake in the air along with his trembling hands. _ He loves you. He won’t do anything bad and you know it. Right? Right?! _

“How would you feel if I… don’t like… women.”

The room is silent. Noct can’t quite resist opening his eyes to see Regis’s face. He can’t quite parse what expression his father is wearing, but it isn’t furious. It’s… just odd.

“I mean,” Noctis adds without any elicitation. “That I can’t like women. In the… romantic… way.”

Regis leans back in his seat, his face still that worrying inscrutable look. “I think that you are very brave to come to me about this,” Regis finally smiles, just a little. “I wish I had the courage to tell my father at your age. It would have saved me a lot of needless sneaking around.”

Incomprehensible. Unfathomable. Utterly bewildering.

Noctis can’t possibly be interpreting that right. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m so proud of the man you’ve become Noctis,” Regis pushes his chair back and stands slowly, clutching the edge of the table for support with one hand and fetching his cane with the other. “And this doesn’t change that in the slightest. Granted, it will certainly make your life harder considering your position, but I would never act to deprive you of your happiness. While someday you will have to marry, you are still free to love who you may in the time you have to do so. It would be hypocritical of me to stand in your way.”

Noctis stands on wobbly knees and meets his father halfway as Regis makes his way around the table, meaning to help in case Regis stumbles on his bad leg. Rather than requesting assistance, Regis plants his cane on the ground and wraps Noct in a one-armed embrace. Tears spring unbidden to Noct’s eyes, surprising him enough that he can’t manage to do anything but ward them off with his face pressed into his father’s cloak.

“Hypocritical?” Noctis asks as they part. Regis softens somehow, his shoulders rounding and his eyes shining. 

“Your mother was not my first love,” Regis smiles wistfully in the way he always does when Aulea crops up in conversation. “To my dismay, I often found my eye caught by men as well as women when I thought I could only choose one. Though I certainly did fall in love with Aulea and still love her to this day, Aulea herself always told me to never hide that part of myself if I could help it.”

“You never said anything,” Noct croaks. 

“I suppose I felt that I… couldn’t help it,” Regis bows his head, and the light from the chandelier above makes his crown throw off glints of silver like starlight. “With the Council and the public being primarily conservative for much of my reign, I feared losing their support if I were to rock the boat, so to speak. After Aulea, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. I see that I was mistaken. How long have you feared telling me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Too long then,” Regis pulls Noct into another hug. “I love you, Noctis. That will never change.”

And so the third entry in Noct’s list is removed, and his expectations for the fourth are completely shattered. He’s been wrong on three counts so far, and the fourth has become a completely mystery to him in light of that. 

There is always the thought that Prompto might be fine with Noctis being gay though, but not fine with Noctis liking Prompto specifically.

Noct tries not to think about that.

**Prompto (10:42 AM)** hey are you busy today?

**Noctis (10:46 AM)** I don’t think so

**Noctis (10:46 AM)** What’s up?

**Prompto (10:48 AM)** i was wondering if maybe you wanted to hang out

**Prompto (10:49 AM)** we could go grab some burgers and go to the arcade or something

Noctis sends off an affirmative and gets ready to go out, sending a text to Ignis and Gladio and spending far too long deciding on one black tee or another to wear. He takes the metro toward the arcade, sending the usual half hour check-in to Gladio as he steps onto the platform and starts off toward the Crow’s Nest he’s meeting Prompto at. This one in particular was once the one Prompto worked at, but he ended up leaving once he landed a job at the electronic resale place near their old high school. Good thing, because while Noctis certainly enjoyed Prompto bringing him leftover food after his shifts, Prompto was always too tired to hang out or do much of anything on his days off after having to work a lot of long and sporadically scheduled shifts at the Nest. It sucked not being able to see him a lot after spending nearly every day with him while they were in school.

“Heyaz,” Prompto waves as Noct enters the diner, grinning like he’s just won the lottery. He’s got his hair styled up in that cute way he’s been trying out lately, and Noct desperately hopes he sticks with it. “I already ordered for ya, and don’t even _ think _ about paying. It’s covered already. Tip, too. Couldn’t risk you swooping that out from under me.”

“Prompto,” Noct can’t help smiling in response, shaking his head at his friend’s absurdity. “I literally have too much of an allowance to know what to do with. Just let me pay you back.”

“No way, chaboy just got his paycheck today and he’s gonna spend it how he likes!” Prompto leans over and taps the opposite side of the table in front of him, prompting Noct to sit down in the booth. “Just relax and enjoy the fries while you can, dude. Ignis’ll probably have ratatouille or something for you when you get home. You know how he is.”

Noct is kinda lost here. “The… rat movie?”

“Oh my gods, no dude,” Prompto laughs and types something into his phone before shoving it in Noct’s direction. “It’s like a vegetable thing. Look.”

“Gross,” Noct pushes the screen away from him. Granted, ratatouille looks kinda cool— but Noct doesn’t want that anywhere near his mouth. No thank you. 

Their food is brought over shortly after, and they dig in while passing Prompto’s phone back and forth, trying to beat the new singleplayer raid that dropped in King’s Knight the night before. 

“So,” Prompto says once the fries are depleted, their burgers devoured, and the ice cream —that Noctis sneakily ordered and paid for while Prompto was distracted by the game— gone save for a few drops that Noctis is busy trying to scrape out of his parfait bowl. “I uh, I kinda wanted to talk to you?”

It comes out as more of a question than anything else. Noct finishes up the final dregs of his chocolate sundae and plunks his empty dish on the table. “Yeah? We’re talking now, aren’t we?”

“Not like that,” Prompto’s ever present grin goes a little weird at the edges. “Like. I wanted to talk to you about something in… particular.”

Something about this seems familiar. Feels almost like deja vu. 

“I’m uh. Woo, this is kinda weird. Probably… probably actually really weird. Like. Kinda bad? Maybe bad. Sorta bad. I don’t know,” Prompto’s rambling gets a little faster the longer he goes. “Like I know I’ve already kinda got a lot of problems going on here because of the whole vaguely foreign thing and everything else, but I mean. Well. I figured I’d be honest even if it… Kinda sucks to be like this in Insomnia. Right? Like I figure you’d probably be alright. Yeah? We’re buds, right? So I figure—”

“Prompto, what is it?”

“Oh it’s. Like. Okay,” Prompto laughs weakly. “I kinda… you know how I never really stop talking about chicks?”

“...yeah?”

“Well that’s kinda. All a lie,” Prompto raps a nervous rhythm beside his plate. “Like. I mean, they’re all nice and all. But I just kinda was… I dunno. Overcompensating, I guess.”

Noct is going to lose his mind if Prompto is saying what Noct thinks he’s saying. And then maybe he might die. That sounds good. 

“For what?” Noctis asks, because he just can’t take even more vague floundering from Prompto. 

“I don’t really like girls,” Prompto shoots a quick set of finger guns to accompany his next words. “Guys are great though. Love ‘em. Top notch. Haaa…”

Noctis is losing his mind. 

“Wanna go out with me?”

Yeah, he’s absolutely lost it. 

Prompto flushes, his face blushing bright red all over. “Wh— what?”

“Sorry I just,” Noct shakes his head, grimacing at his own uncommon impulsivity. “I don’t know. Sorry.”

“Oh,” Prompto nods, still doing a really good impression of a beet. “So, you… _ don’t _ want to go out?”

“Do _ you _?”

“I mean,” Prompto’s smile strengthens once again, though he continues blushing like mad. “This is a pretty good first date, right? Arcade after?”

They go to the arcade after.

That night, Noctis deletes his hidden notes app and finds that he can’t stop smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: for those of you confused by Luna’s letter, in our word a “friend of Dorothy” used to be a term used to refer to gay men like myself. I snagged it and made an equivalent term for FFXV for wlw. I live like this ok
> 
> Follow me on Twitter [@compromisedunit](https://mobile.twitter.com/compromisedunit).


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